Style Makers; POTTER: Joan M. Platt

By MARY C. CURTIS

Published: December 22, 1991

Nothing matches, exactly, in Joan M. Platt's matching tableware. And so, in a set of hand-made plates or stew bowls, each item has individual curves, and if a client wants the same dish he or she ordered the year before, there's no guarantee.

"You never get the same effect twice," she said. "I think an element of fun and pleasure should be associated with eating."

JMP Pottery, as her wares are called, is made with stoneware clay and non-toxic glazes at Mrs. Platt's studio in Palisades, N.Y. She shares the jammed studio with rollers, molds, a pottery wheel, mounds of clay and stacks of precariously piled uneven tableware.

Some larger serving dishes are streaked with color, but Mrs. Platt prefers complementary and nondistracting earth tones, most often sand, brown-black or muted green. She says the food must be the main attraction.

Mrs. Platt, who is 56, has been showing and selling her work since 1985. One of her serving dishes is in the antipasto display at the Mangia restaurant in Manhattan. Others have been used in food displays in Metropolitan Home and other magazines.

Her interest in pottery began 20 years ago after she had worked as a teacher and for an environmental policy group. She had broken an arm; her doctor, trying to speed her recovery, suggested washing dishes as therapy, "So I went home and told my family the doctor said I should take up pottery."

JMP Pottery, which is dishwasher-safe, is at the Claiborne Gallery in Manhattan, the Gardener in Berkeley, Calif., and Mohr and McPherson in Cambridge, Mass. Prices range from about $30 for a cup or a set of salt and pepper shakers to $200 for a large platter.

Photo: Joan M. Platt: to each piece, its own shape. (Kim Garnick/The New York Times)